Alison's training log

Only recently joined this forum and had loads of help already to sort out my not so wonderful training routine
From what i've read i think its going to look like this:

Abs – plank and work up to abroller
- flexion - sit ups et concentrating on quality rather than quantity
Farmers walk
Waiters walk
Single leg deadlift – lifting with opposite arm
Single leg squat
Flexion – concentrate on form rather than quantity
Wall squats
Split squat
upright barbell Row
Cable pull downs – aiming to build up to 1 pull up by xmas (i know - i'm a weakling)

so my questions are:
1. do i aim to use weights and if so is it 8-10 reps, 1 set to failure or 3 sets of 10 at a weight that is about 70% of what i can do at most?
2. is there anything else i should be doing
3. i would normally do 25 minutes jogging at the end - can i still do this at the end of this workout? or should i leave cardio for alternate days?

currently i'm in gym monday, wednesday and friday and doing cardio tues and thursday.

thanks for reading this


2.

1/ 3 x 10 is a reasonable starting point. At the start it should not be really hard, you have to learn decent form & will get benefit with any weight.

2/ Yea, keep in the bench press or do a shoulder press

3/ It's fine to do the cardio afterwards.


Unless you're very strong you won't get a single squat at first, any single leg squat variation is pretty advanced, you can try the single leg deadlift, I usually do a progression toward the single leg deadlift as well (you'll find I'm VERY progression-based in all my idea - I start everything easy, then work up over time to hard with most people). Things to notice are asymmetries (differences between left & right hand side), these are something you want to work on, add in extra foam rolling to sides that have issues, work on mobility, if necessary do extra work on the side lagging.
With single leg squats I'd start:

Wall squat (get that right first - once perfect that can become part of the warm-up)
Split squat
Rear foot elevated split squat
Lunge (multiplanar - or multi-directional if you prefer that term, forward, backward & sideways)
next depends on what sort of single leg squat you are preferring to do.

The pistol looks coolest, but is no good if you have back issues related to flexion (or forward bending)..I'll find a video (you can work up to weight eventually if you like)



You can stand on a bench & then lower yourself down (if your bench is in a rack you can use your arms for balance & help if necessary)
or
you can do a one leg squat with knee bent, simply bend one leg so the knee points downwards & the heel touches the bum, then go down until that knee touches the ground. Not as cool as pistols to see, but it's tough!

Again there are progressions for each of these single leg variations, so use them. There are even DVDs etc about learning the pistol etc. Steve Cotter is about the best guy doing a pistol I've ever seen (you can see his stuff on youtube) you don't need to get that impressive to have super strong legs, doing a few pistols or any variation of the one leg squats will put you in the top 5% of people in terms of leg strength.

For the ab flexion & core stuff (by the way the word flexion means to contract, every muscle flexes or extends. Flexion is the act of flexing, so you put the muscle or bodypart before the word unless it's obvious - so when you barbell curl you are causing arm flexion as you curl the bar upwards - but if you are already talking about abs you can just use the word flexion as it is obvious you are still talking about abs) start with the planking ,maybe a few crunches or similar & work up from there to harder progressions over time. Training isn't a race, we are actually looking to improve for the next 10-20 years at least, so there isn't any rush, perfect each step as that leads directly to the next. Younger people find this really hard (they can't even imagine what 20 years looks like!), but as you get older you have the advantage of learning that some things simply take time, the journey is as important as the destination, in this case it may even be MORE important!